Mr Monk's Doctor is Downtown
by TheMusicBullet
Summary: What happens when Dr. Kroger is the primary suspect in a homicide? Captain Stottlemeyer is fired and the new captain can be quite... Psychotic.
1. Prologue: A Therapist's Day

Dr. Charles Kroger sighed with relief as his last patient of the day walked out of the room. The day had been long and tiring; Thursdays were always the hardest. He stood up, groaning at the dull, throbbing pain in his stiff spine. "Blasted chairs," he grumbled. "They used to be comfortable; now they're just _painful._"

Passing by the front desk, he told the receptionist, "I'd like you to place on order for some new chairs for my therapy room. Get them from a different company than the current ones I have, but have them _look_ exactly the same. I-"

The blonde rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I think it's stupid that they have to look the same. Are you worried about that Monk guy, or whatever his name is? He's so annoying. I still don't see how you can even tolerate him. If I were you, I'd-"

Dr. Kroger did not wait to hear exactly what she would do in his place. He shot a piercing glare at her and raised his voice. "Well, it just so happens that you are _not _me! And no one is perfect Susan. Not even you. I _am _worried about Adrian, and I intend to make everything as comforting and familiar as possible for _all_ of my patients, not just him. Besides, seeing as it's me who provides your paycheck, I would think that you'd be a bit more respectful!"

Susan and Dr. Kroger had been at each other's throats for about a month now. His other receptionist, Jessica, who had been a charming young lady, had been murdered. Unfortunately, Adrian Monk hadn't yet solved the case. Dr. Kroger hadn't been able to find anyone after that to fill the vacant position, even temporarily. He figured that people were a bit unsettled, thinking that a murder was just the type of strange thing to happen in a psychiatrist's office, with all the so-called "crazy nut-jobs." Then Susan had come along, a college student desperate for money to pay off her rent. Since there had been no one else willing to take the job, he'd immediately hired her, which had been a big mistake. He would have fired her by now, but no one else would take her job.

"Yeah. I mean, _yes sir_," she replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Just do it!" he said, losing his temper. He flung the door open and walked out into the cool night air. The doctor angrily got into his car and started the engine. As he started to pull out of his designated parking space, he mentally berated himself for being so easily aggravated. _What kind of psychiatrist loses his temper? _he thought. _Even if I _was_ irritated, I shouldn't get worked up like that. I'm a_ doctor, _for Heaven's sake! _Then he realized that he had forgotten his keys. He pulled his car back into his parking area and went inside. He walked by Susan, but he didn't say anything, not trusting himself to speak kindly.

"Did the famous doctor forget something?" she taunted. Dr. Kroger bit his tongue, stifling a rather unpleasant response he had in mind. He went into the therapy room, where he last remembered having his keys. When he spotted them on the floor, he bent to pick them up, but he felt a bit ill, so he decided to just rest for a bit. The weary psychiatric therapist sat down in one of the two uncomfortable chairs and tried to relax, as he had advised many of his own patients to do when under stress. For Dr. Kroger was under a truckload, no, a _mountain_ of stress in his life. There was his bills, his patients, Susan, the chairs, his drifting family... Too much stress to think about. Even though he tried to relax, his troubled mind wandered to other dark realms of thought. Then, the man snapped out of it and chatised himself yet again._ Am I really a good therapist or doctor if I can't even help myself with my own issues? _The thought made him uneasy as he slowly slipped deeper and deeper into the iron grip of sleep.

His last thought before he sank into it's depths was, _Stop it, Charles. You're being too hard on yourself._

_Being a therpist is taxing._

The following morning, he woke up at seven o'clock. The first thing he saw was Adrian Monk's concerned face peering down at him. "Adrian!" he said, a bit puzzled, to say the least. Your session isn't until Monday. Even today, my first session isn't until..." He checked his watch. "Hmm, it's in a half hour. I better get ready. But what are you doing here?"

He watched as Adrian's expression morphed into one of sadness, pain, and confusion. "Dr. Kroger... You..." he swallowed, unable to finish the sentence.

Ever vigilant and wanting to help, he asked Adrian, "Yes? You can go on. What's troubling you, Adrian?"

Monk, with difficulty, answered, "You're... You're the primary suspect in a homicide!"

Only then did he look around and notice unfamiliar faces staring at him with ice-cold eyes.

A burly man with a mop of dark brown hair stepped forward. "Hello, old _friend._ You're under arrest. You'd better watch it, 'cause that softie Stottlemeyer's not here to defend you. I'm the new captain of the Homicide and Robbery Division in the San Francisco Police Department. Boys, let's bring him downtown." A cold feeling settled in the pit of the doctor's stomach when he recognized the man. It was Samuel McLean. _How did this happen? _the therapist thought.

Two policemen roughly pulled a very shocked Dr. Kroger up out of the chair and handcuffed him. As they started to march him to the door, Adrian ran after them, shouting, "No! You can't do this! We don't even have evidence yet! I know Dr. Kroger! He would never hurt anybody!" He continued to shout as he caught up and tried to make the other police officers let go of his doctor.

The new Captain McLean shouted, "Disher! Restrain him!" His voice was akin to that of a barking dog. "Better to have an innocent primary suspect in jail than a killer loose on the streets. That's what I always say."

The pain was evident in Randy's eyes as he ran to Monk's side and pulled him away from his beloved doctor, the one person besides Trudy he could seek comfort from. Adrian continued to struggle in Randy's grasp. "Let him go!" he yelled.

Dr. Kroger forcefully said, "Adrian!" Monk ceased to struggle and put his head in his hands, despairing. "Look at me." he coaxed. Adrian looked up and made eye contact with him. It seemed as if all the worry in the world was embodied in that single look, that depressed gaze. "Nothing bad is going to happen, alright? Everything's going to be fine." He continued, "Nothing bad is going to happen to you. Nothing bad is going to happen to me." He held eye contact a little longer. Then the doctor turned around and complied with the two police officers as they marched him out the door. Adrian still didn't look reassured.

Adrian Monk sank into the nearest chair and put his head in his hands once again. He spoke quietly, his voice shaky. "'Nothing bad is going to happen to me.' That's what Trudy always used to say."


	2. Chapter 1: Investigations Begin

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!" Adrian Monk shouted, pacing furiously around the room that was pretty much his second home. "He is NOT a murderer!"

Randy Disher, sympathetic yet exasperated, sat down in one of the chairs used for therapy. "Hmm, kind of uncomfortable… Yeah, Monk, we know. But the evidence IS pointing to him. He was the only one known to have been in the building at the time of Susan's murder, they were heard arguing earlier that night, only an hour before the estimated time of the murder, they had been arguing for several weeks, the GUN was RIGHT THERE beside him… I just don't know, Monk. You've gotta admit, it looks pretty bad." He sighed. "But have you ever considered… _Maybe, _just maybe, he lost his temper and there was an accident and-"

"No!" Monk exclaimed. "How could you even think about such a thing! He… H-he… He-he-he… He's DR. KROGER, damn it! And get out of his chair!" Randy quickly jumped out of the doctor's chair and went over to the couch. "And don't you _ever_ mention that again, damn it!" Monk stormed out of the therapy room and into the waiting room where the body was.

"Calm down, calm down…" Monk said, speaking to himself. "Just a little murder, right? You can't let a little death get in the way of you and your therapist, right? Heh." He walked around the room, checking for the small, 'Monk-ish' clues everybody else usually overlooked. "Randy!" he yelled, still a bit peeved at him for even considering Dr. Kroger's involvement. "Where's the weapon?"

"Coming!" he heard the lieutenant shout from the therapy room.

"Wipe!" Monk held out his hand, only to remember that he had sent Natalie to his house to get a few things. Instead, he just pulled out a wipe from his extra back-up pack of sanitary wipes.

As Randy entered the room and handed him the gun, he said, "Wiped clean. Bullets wiped, barrel, wiped, trigger, leather grip… everything wiped clean. No evidence."

But Monk immediately noticed something. "Ha!" he said, suddenly ecstatic. "It's a left-handed gun! Dr. Kroger is right handed! That proves it! He's innocent! Not that I needed any proof. But some _doubters_ weren't convinced…" he said, looking about the room with an air of innocence. He was evidently unaware that Randy was looking at him with amusement.

"Monk, I'm the only one in this room. I know you're talking about me. I mean, you could be talking about someone else, but I know you're talking about me. I think. Yes, you are."

"I could be talking about the new captain," he persisted, but Randy's expression gave him reason to stop pressing the matter. "Anyway… What happened to Captain Stottlemeyer? How did this nutcase therapist arrester get the job?"

Randy called the new captain McLean some pretty nasty names inside his head. "Captain Stottlemeyer was… arrested. They… They found drugs in his office. Why? I don't know. We both know that he's innocent, right?"

Monk looked at him with an intensity he'd rarely seen before. "Do you believe Dr. Kroger is innocent? Or will you lock him up, too?"

Randy sighed, resigned. "Yes, yes, Dr. Kroger is innocent. We know the Captain is, too. Right?"

"Right," Monk confirmed. "Now we have to catch the guy who framed Dr. Kroger, and the guy who framed the Captain."

"Yeah," Randy said. "Something's not right here."

"Well, obviously! Someone spilled pomegranate juice on the carpet! What kind of maniac does that?" he exclaimed. There was a large, purplish, reddish blotch on the carpet by the chair. It looked like blood at first, but Mr. Monk could tell the difference, of course.

"Um, I meant the fact that there was a murder, the Captain was framed, and I didn't get promoted to his position like I was supposed to when he was fired!"

"Yes, there's that, too," he said, never taking his eyes off the stain on the carpet. "Wait… Wait, waitwaitwaitwait. This stain wasn't there when I left yesterday…"

"Weren't there other people coming in after you?" Randy inquired.

"Yes, but if there was anyone here, they would have cleaned it up. Look," he said, taking a wipe out from inside his jacket. He bent down and took a quick swipe at the stain, resisting the urge to scrub it until no record of its existence remained. "See," he said, pointing at the moist cloth. "If it had been cleaned, this would have come up clean, or at least less dirty than it is right now. There's so much residue on this wipe that no one could have cleaned it!"

"Monk, with you, nothing's clean enough."

Monk continued as if he had not heard. "And I wonder why the cleaning lady didn't come through last night…"

Randy said, "Oh, we already called and asked her about that. She had to leave early to go take her Aunt Marissa to the ER."

"Well, did you check the ER records?" Monk asked.

"Oh…" Randy said, crestfallen. "I didn't do that. And I'm sure nobody else did, because as far as Captain McLean is concerned, this murderer is already captured. He's ordered us to stop working on this case because it's already solved. Case closed."

He swore, cursing McLean excessively, while Randy just stood there looking awkward. "He doesn't _deserve _to have the word "clean" in his name! He's a filthy therapist arrester! Cop arrester! THERAPIST ARRESTER!" he shouted, then fell silent. All was quiet, save for the gentle white noise emanating from the white noise machine. "Ok… I'm done ranting. It's your turn, if you want to…" Monk trailed off, awkward and unsure as to what he should say.

"Um, no, that's okay. I think I'll pass on the ranting part."

"No, no! It's okay, it won't bother me! Go ahead if you want."

"Seriously, I'm fine!"

"It really doesn't matter to me, I-"

"I don't want to rant, Monk!"

"Okay, okay," Monk said. "Don't get so worked up about it. Sheesh.

.

A few minutes later, Randy had the results. "No one named Marissa Trenton was in the ER last night. No one with the name Marissa, or with the name Trenton. Why was she lying?"

"That's what we're going to figure out. Unfortunately, there are no security cameras in the building," Monk said. He sat down in his beloved chair. "I love these chairs…"

And that's when he noticed a patient file sticking out of the drawer.

The print on it read, 'Samuel F. McLean'.


End file.
